After President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act over the summer, only 15 electric vehicles still qualified for the full $7,500 EV tax credit. Hyundai, somewhat understandably, didn't like that since none of its EVs made the list.
https://jalopnik.com/hyundai-says-its-worried-the-inflation-reduction-act-wi-1849904021
Yup! I think I mentioned that if Hyundai did not have the $5000 dealer markup and did have the $7500 tax credit, we would have one on order right now. $12,500 extra is more than I paid for my brand new and dearly beloved Ford Escort wagon in 1995.
The interesting question is, how would I feel about the Hyundai price if *nobody* had a $7500 tax credit?
The European side of it has gotten more coverage
Tax credits for EU electric vehicles dominate U.S. trade talks (Dec 5)https://www.reuters.com/world/mondays-eu-us-trade-talks-overshadowed-by-tax-concerns-climate-measure-2022-12-05/
EU says it has serious concerns about Biden's Inflation Reduction Act(Nov 7)"Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization, said Monday that countries need to be "very careful that whatever policies [they] are taking should not be discriminatory, should not favour domestic goods."
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/07/us-inflation-reduction-act-eu-raises-concerns-risks-wto-dispute.html
Why US allies are upset over electric vehicle subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act (December 2)https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/why-us-allies-are-upset-over-electric-vehicle-subsidies-inflation
QuoteIn the years since 2009, there has been some serious economic research examining the effects of these US state and federal tax credits. Tamara Sheldon, at the University of South Carolina, has an excellent survey on this. That research tends to find that while the early versions of these consumer subsidies did work at encouraging Americans to switch from gas to electric vehicles, the subsidies were pretty costly and not very well targeted.For the same dollar amount of total subsidies being paid out by the government, more people would've switched over to EVs if the government had increased subsidies available for lower income households and not given away as many tax credits to richer households, who would've bought the EVs anyway.
QuoteThe Korean carmakers are really upset. They lost access to the old tax credits as of August 16 when the North American assembly requirement of the IRA went into effect... Hyundai may not be eligible for the new tax credits until its $5 billion EV plant in Georgia starts rolling cars off the assembly line in 2025. Overall, US policy at the moment is really a mixed bag for South Korean companies. Hyundai and Kia are upset that they've lost these exports. But at the same time, Hyundai did get a major tax break from the state of Georgia to build that $5 billion EV plant.
I've been wondering lately whether all the money going to encourage relatively well-off people to buy EVs would not be better spent improving the grid. If we all go out and get EVs and huge money is not put into the grid, I'm afraid charger lines will make the gas lines of the 1970s look like an Indy pit stop.
Also, does 2025 keep coming up for everything (Hyundai plant, SS batteries and that's just today) because it's a real date when things will really kick off, or because it's far enough away that marketers think we will all have forgotten what they promised in 2022?
That's a serious question. Years of false promises have jaded me, but "we will have full self driving by 2022" is very different from "the plant that we broke ground on in Oct 2022 will start production in 2025" or "the battery we start testing in 2023 will be available to consumers in 2025."
The first promise is just talking, the second promise is like "we have a plan and a schedule" and the third promise is "we are going to try a real thing and hope it works (but most likely it won't)"